KENT - John Casey had a front row seat Monday morning to police apprehension of a man who caused a commotion on the Kent Green. It appeared to witnesses that he may have been strapped to a bomb and was threatening to blow himself up.

Casey, owner of the Kent Green Shopping Center, said the man was "clearly mentally ill" and had himself "all wired up to a box in the back seat" of the car he was driving. State police stopped the man on the Green near the Union Savings Bank. Casey also runs the N.M. Watson Bird Feed Supply store on the corner of the Green and Route 7, a few businesses down from the bank.

As a precaution, staff and patrons were evacuated from the bank, as well as Raynard and Pierce Insurance and the True Value Hardware store across the road, Casey said.

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